


the cracks in the universe

by Astrid_Goes_For_A_Spin



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: "from the moment they meet, BAMF Rose Tyler, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, Can Be Read As Romantic, Canon Compliant, Episode: s05e13 The Big Bang, F/M, Fix-It, Gen, Happy Ending, Queerplatonic Partnership, Queerplatonic Relationships, Rose Tyler Loves the Doctor, Rose and the Doctor are QPP, Rose and the Doctor are soulmates, Rose and the Doctor are soulmates", Rose gets agency, Rose will make her own decisions, The Doctor Loves Rose Tyler, The Doctor has some regrets, Time Travel Fix-It, dimension hopping Rose Tyler, qpp, technically, this is very shippy tbh I'm just too ace to want it to be romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:33:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25865182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Astrid_Goes_For_A_Spin/pseuds/Astrid_Goes_For_A_Spin
Summary: The Doctor is unraveling on the other side of time and space. Rose is jumping through the Void, searching for home.Or, Rose finds the Doctor during the second Big Bang.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor & Rose Tyler, Eleventh Doctor/Rose Tyler, Ninth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor & Rose Tyler, Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who) & Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler, The Doctor's TARDIS & Rose Tyler
Comments: 18
Kudos: 158





	the cracks in the universe

**Author's Note:**

> So I started watching in quarantine and I can't even tell you how angry I was at EVERYTHING at the end of Ten. Fridging both Donna AND Rose and nobody gets a say and it's soooo unbearable to me and if I didn't already know I'd like Matt Smith I probably would have stopped out of hatred forever, but fortunately I kept on, because now this fix-it is born.

When the dimension cannon had been calibrated just between her two worlds, Rose found, popping between them was easy. It was just a jolt, a gasp, a feeling of your stomach bottoming out, and then you were there, feet on solid ground.

Trying to find the dimension she’d lost, on the other hand…trying to break through gaps in the universes…that isn’t so good.

In the _daysmonthsyears_ Rose has been pushing that damn button, she’s learned a few things: pushing through the ragged dimensional barrier is _pain_ , and it’s best to hit the ground running, no matter how her head aches and her lungs seize.

She used to feel déjà vu, after the heart of the TARDIS left her. Sometimes every moment, sometimes the big moments, Rose would think, _I’ve been here before_. Because she had; she’d had all of space and time laid out in front of her all at once, and that made its mark on a person.

She’s still waiting to feel it, to look down at the readings on her wrist and know, _I’ve been here before_ , to breathe air she’s always known she was supposed to breathe. The closest she’s come so far has been a timeline all of its own with a chatty redhead whom the dimension cannon keeps finding. But that universe, like her dad’s, has no hope without the Doctor, and she has to – she has to keep going. 

Rose punches the button. Lava sheets over her skin. Her stomach turns to stone. Her breath freezes in her chest. Every heartbeat thunders through her head. Despite the pain, Rose hits the ground running.

Except there’s nowhere to run, this time; Rose has barely appeared before she smacks face-first into blue boards. Before she even catches her breath, she feels it. _I’ve been here before_.

Blinking the stars from her eyes – it seems so blue, bluer than blue, brighter than she remembers – Rose grabs instinctively for the handle, jams her key into the lock, and forces her way through the door.

The smell, the noise – she’s _home_. Rose starts welling tears of relief the moment she gets inside. The TARDIS makes a little welcoming _hum_ just for her. She’s in her world, the world she’s been trying to find all along, and she’s in the one place-time in the universe that’s _right_ –

“Back already?” A man’s voice calls from the opposite side of the console. Rose gasps, because she hadn’t noticed: the TARDIS is brighter, lighter; the metal grating and coral struts are gone, and there’s glass and colored bulbs everywhere. This is the TARDIS, but not _her_ TARDIS. Or maybe –

The man looks at her and Rose feels like she’s just jumped dimensions again. He’s got a wide forehead and light, floppy hair and nervous fingers, a bowtie and suspenders, and he’s so obviously the Doctor even though he’s a man she’s never seen before. (How did she miss it, miss _him_ , again? _Againagainagain?_ )

“Rose,” he says, stunned. He says her name differently than the last one. (She still prefers her name in that northern accent, though, the _O_ all drawn out.)

“Yeah,” Rose confirms, grinning a little.

The other Doctors, her Doctors, would have caught her by now, lifted her in a hug and spun her around and made her feel like she was _everything_. This Doctor looks like he’s unraveling at the seams. She wipes away some of her tears with the back of her hand and stumbles up to meet him. Instead of a hug, he grabs Rose’s forearms, expressive forehead creasing in what looks like terrible pain.

“When you came in, I thought you were Amy. She just went off – wait, that’s not right.” Frustrated, he shakes his head, grips his hair. “I HATE repeats!” he cries, and Rose doesn’t know a thing about what he’s saying, but he’s here. He’s _here_.

“You shouldn’t be here, the dimensions were supposed to be sealed off forever, but I suppose that makes sense if I’m unwinding-” He stops long enough to finally look at her, and Rose’s insides crumple. “This is when you’re going through dimensions to find me, eh? To warn me about the darkness and the Daleks and the planets in the sky?”

Rose nods, unable to speak.

“If you can, you’ll have to keep going,” the Doctor says. “It’s not safe here.” He’s not looking at her anymore, but Rose has the sense he might be crying a little, too.

“Where is here, Doctor?”

The smile he gives her is hollow and unfeeling. “The Void. The nothingness. Had to jumpstart the universe, put the cracks back together, and I’ve got myself trapped on the other side.”

“Know how that feels,” Rose mutters.

“You don’t understand, it’s not just – the Void, it’s _time_ , the crack is time, I’m going backward and just happened to intersect, I’m about to be non-history, never existed, nothing!”

At once Rose does understand, and everything hurts all over again. “Why can’t you just go to a different world?”

He shakes his head. “Walls’re all closed. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. ’Cept wait.”

Rose wipes away a few more tears. “What are you waitin’ for?”

“Amy.” At this, his expression lightens just a miniscule bit. “Right about now she’ll be sitting down at her wedding. If anyone can, her memory can call me back and fix this, save me before I’m all the way erased, she’s bound to have put the whole universe back to rights by now.”

Amy. Rose has been through enough dimensions to know about Martha, and Donna. She knows he’s lonely and can never stay by himself for long, and – it’s hard not to get swept away by him. She remembers his holographic message telling her to live a good life and forget him – it seems like he might be doing the same thing.

“So you’ve already done it, then, I’m too late?” Rose asks, shaking her head, trying to remember. “The darkness is gone, and-”

Rose has seen so much since the Doctor grabbed her hand and led her into a whole new life. She’s seen him stripped to the waist, screaming and electrocuted; she’s seen him desperate; she’s seen him furious and terrified and grieving. But she has never seen him like this.

The Doctor – taller than the last one, and, Rose notices, charmingly bowlegged – kneels on the causeway, still holding her arms. His hands slide down to hold hers, and Rose sees the tears on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Rose says, alarmed. “I thought Amy was going to – to remember you, make it all undone, what’s wrong?”

“If I do blink out of existence, I suppose this won’t matter, you won’t remember anyway,” the Doctor rambles, his whole body shaking. “Even if. _Spoilers_. But…”

He looks up at her, and Rose stares into this new, unfamiliar face, into wide, pained greenish eyes.

“The last time I saw you, I did – something terrible,” the Doctor whispers. “There was another me. A half-human me, with Donna Noble’s DNA, and he was – just like I used to be, when we met. And I left him with you, on the other world, I stranded you and left while you had your back turned and-”

“Another Doctor?” Rose repeats, stricken. “You – you left me?” Even though all she’s wanted to do is hold him, Rose leans away and takes her hands back. “I – I’ve been jumpin’ through dimensions, to save this – to save _you_ , to come back to you, and you thought-”

“I thought you’d be happier with him, settle down – like we were going to when we lost the TARDIS – I – he killed all the – he was a murderer, just like I used to be…” Still looking down, the Doctor confesses with an air of deep shame, “I suppose I wanted to punish him. Out of sight, out of mind. But safe with you. And I thought you could – make him better.”

“That’s not my responsibility!” Rose shouts, fully getting to her feet. “You can’t dump a – a clone on me because you don’t like him, because he’s not convenient! _I MADE MY CHOICE!”_

Rose’s head is pounding just as hard as it does during a dimension jump, and her vision is so blurred by tears that, with the familiar sounds and smells, she can almost forget this isn’t her TARDIS.

“I made my choice so many times,” Rose chokes. “I left them to come back to you in the future! My family was safe and I came back to _you_ at Canary Wharf, and-”

“Your family was still safe,” the Doctor says quickly, in reassurance. “You were with them.”

“But I wanted to be with _you_. The real you! _I_ _made my choice!_ ” She’s almost too angry to cry. “You promised me. We were going to have this, our life together, go and see amazing things and go to all the distress beacons and _help people-_ ”

The Doctor rises to his feet, slowly. He’s so unfamiliar, Rose thinks, but he moves in a way she knows. Or he would, if he wasn’t so grief-stricken and delicate right now.

“But it hasn’t happened to you yet,” the Doctor says, in that tone of almost-wonder Rose knows when he’s getting an idea. “And it might not matter at all if I’m about to unwind…” He comes to her and seizes her shoulders, forcing his face close to hers to peer into her eyes.

“Don’t let him do it. Don’t let him give the human me to you. Tell your mum to get your dad and Tony and be ready at Bad Wolf Bay. Make him take them back and stay in this dimension, your dimension.”

Rose blinks, trying to sort out this new information. “Are you telling me to change the past? W-won’t that create a paradox, like-”

The Doctor finally gives her a bit of a smile. “No. The future. Doesn’t count. Time is not the boss of me! You said you made your choice, and you’re right, you did. I can’t – I can’t let him do that to you again, even if you deserve-”

“It’s not about what I deserve,” Rose snaps. “It’s about what I _want_.”

“I have to figure something out about the other me,” the Doctor says, letting her go and starting to pace. “I can’t trust him to the other world, not when you’re not there to help him, but he deserves a life…”

“Why can’t he just stay here, with us?” Rose asks. “It’s not like we couldn’t use another Doctor.”

It looks as though this never occurred to him. “Is that – fair? No, it couldn’t be-”

“I’ll _ask_ him, when I see him,” Rose says firmly. “That’s fair. If I know what you’re about to spring on us I’ll be able to make you both sit down and _talk_. And my family will be back here. You’ve figured it all out.” (It’s not like she doesn’t know half the reason he throws himself into these mad adventures is to distract from the temptation to rewrite, fix, change.)

The Doctor does seem to be filling with energy again, that familiar bounciness Rose knows so well. The tears are slowing, for both of them. Rose checks her screen: the dimension cannon is recharged. Rose can leave any time now. She really should – now that she’s found the right universe, all she has to do is go back.

(She doesn’t want to go.)

The TARDIS is starting to rattle, though.

“What’s happening?” Rose asks, grabbing at the railings and falling into the console chair – it’s newly upholstered and clean instead of grotty and lopsided. “Is the TARDIS coming apart? The paradox?”

The Doctor’s face is alight. “No!” he shouts, then beckons her. “It’s Amy! She’s pulling us back! I have to put on a tuxedo!”

Rose laughs despite herself and follows him at a run to the wardrobe. He’s throwing clothes everywhere and his edges are starting to blur, just a bit. He strips off his suit, completely unselfconscious, and Rose snorts even louder as he tries to wiggle into a new pair of trousers and do up the buttons while the TARDIS is shaking fit to come apart.

“You have to go!” the Doctor shouts, but Rose falls into his chest and helps get his bowtie on as straight as she can.

“I know,” Rose says, very reluctantly, as the Doctor looks around eagerly and selects a top hat Rose thinks she might’ve seen in the seventeenth century. She’s starting to leak tears again, even though the Doctor’s optimistic energy, as ever, is contagious.

“Go find me and make him treat you better,” the Doctor commands while Rose recalibrates her cannon. She’s just about lost hope of it when he does it: grabs her up in his arms until her feet leave the floor and swings her. She holds him, his unfamiliar chest and new smell, like she’s afraid he’s about to disappear. Because he is. Because they both are.

“I love you so much, Rose Tyler,” the Doctor says, very seriously, still holding her. “Don’t hate him for being too stupid to tell you before.”

Time is moving differently than it was a second ago, and Rose thinks, _I’ve been here before_. The TARDIS is getting brighter and brighter, and the Doctor is holding her tight, and in defiance of all his own rules, he’s given her instructions to fix his mistakes and give her the life she chose so long ago when he opened the door and invited her _everywhere_.

Rose smashes the damn button.


End file.
